Migrating packages from previous installs in DrRacket

General
1

Follow-up to my question above about a minimal process for upgrading...

I took the opportunity to upgrade to Racket v8.8 (from v8.7). I'm using macOS Monterey 12.6.3. I dragged the Racket v8.8 folder from the .dmg into the /Applications/Tools-Developer folder on my hard drive. I double-clicked the DrRacket.app icon and saw this:

image
image1464Ă—1548 321 KB

I then made some false starts, but I believe the proper next steps are:

  • File -> Package Manager...
  • Click the "Copy from Version" tab
  • Select the previous version Racket
  • Click the "Copy from Version" button

I suspect quitting and re-launching Racket would make it all work. I'll review/update this procedure when Racket v8.9 comes out :slight_smile:

2

Ah, the problem here is not related to Quickscript that I previously suggested. Rather, it’s a combination of two things:

  1. You previously used #lang br in DrRacket on the version 8.7. DrRacket helpfully remembers the most recently used #lang in ~/Library/Preferences/org.racket-lang.prefs.rktd, so that when you open a new empty buffer, the #lang will automatically be placed for convenience.

  2. When you open a new empty buffer, the program will be run immediately. This is so that the REPL is loaded with the #lang environment, allowing you to use the REPL right away.

The issue is that after you freshly install the version 8.8, #lang br wouldn’t be installed yet, so when you open DrRacket, the automatic running causes the failure that you saw.

The heuristics to run a new empty buffer to load a #lang seems problematic to me. It has caused many other issues before. See https://github.com/mbutterick/pollen/issues/268 and https://github.com/racket/drracket/issues/555. I think it would be nice to revisit the heuristics and see if it’s actually needed, or if there’s anything we can do in a more principled manner.

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3

The goal is to get an interactions window that doesn't error (and isn't #lang racket/base or something like that) without having to run the program. I'm happy to try other approaches, for sure.

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4

I would still very much like this behavior to be something that is opted into and controlled at the #lang level. I find it annoying, to put it bluntly. When I want code to run I will run it.

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5

Well, turning it off would be easy enough to do, for sure.

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6

Is it possible on startup to show the loaded environment when there is no error, but in case of an error eat the error and show a empty text box?

(Obviously, when the user clicks the "run" button, DrRacket must show the error.)

7

That’s… even more heuristics. Though my biggest gripe is that currently DrRacket hard codes Pollen as an exception for the automatic running, which… doesn’t seem like the Right Thing(tm) to do. I would hope for a more extensible approach, along the line that @joeld mentioned.

8

To meet the goal of having a working interactions window at startup, would another workable solution be to to the following as part of installation? or on a prompt the first time DrRacket is started?

  1. Configure Command Line for Racket...
  2. Detect the previous installed version
  3. If previous version exists run raco pkg migrate < previous installed version>

Stephen

9

Assuming Configure Command Line has side effects like writing to
shell configuration files or similar, I would (personally) not want
that to happen automatically.

10

Not even as a prompt?

11

Acceptable :slight_smile: but possibly as an option? Assuming I have the command-line set up properly, I might want DrR to just do the raco pkg migrate part.